8 Digital Marketing trends to look out for in 2016

#1. Facebook will seriously challenge Google in Search and e-commerce

Facebook is rumoured to be working on testing their own search engine. Imagine searching on Facebook and seeing results that are personalised to you based on your profile, location, gender, income group, etc. How great is that?

Brands will also get the most amazing targeting / visibility boost with these search capabilities. But what is really really exciting is that given the Mobile usage of the Facebook App, this should open up an end to end sales life cycle for Brands, from Search to Purchase. Now that ought to put some serious fire under Google’s seat. And honestly, its something the industry is dying to get. An alternative to Google.

Google has also recently revealed their Identity-Based Pay-Per-Click Marketing via Adwords. This will make the competition really exciting and hopefully make the consumer the winner here.

Imagine searching on Facebook and seeing results that are personalised to you based on your profile, location, gender, income group, etc.

#2. The marriage between Healthy Living & Wearable Tech.

Do you wear an Apple watch? How many times have you been reminded to stand up to reach your standing goal for the day ?

Before you kill me for bringing this ancient (pun intended) concept again, let me tell you, that in my opinion this is the Blue Ocean that has still not been tapped to its potential, the best is yet to come. I would argue that with the growing search volumes for health related information, and consumers becoming increasingly aware about their own health issues, the health and wearable space is just about beginning to crawl its way up.

Apple in partnership with Nike created HealthKit, where users can now set goals and track their progress through a single dashboard. There are innumerous brands working this space Fitbit, GoQii, etc. And out of all this effort there is Data that will be generated. Data you can use to target or retarget consumers or to create even more cool innovations in this space. I am hopeful of seeing some amazing new launches in 2016 in this space.

#3. Paid Social Media… Up, Up and Away…

Social Media was supposed free wasn’t it?

Welcome to the new world. Social Media isn’t free at all, and as time progresses, it will become increasingly more expensive to be a Social Brand. Facebook attracted millions of Marketers the world over by the promise of reaching its customers / fans and Brands invested millions of dollars to build their fan bases. But things have changed considerably in the last few years. Facebook organic reach for Pages is almost down to Zero.

Facebook organic reach for Pages is almost down to Zero.

And guess what, almost all Social Platforms are following suit. So now if you want to reach out to your fans / followers, it will “pay” only if you “pay”.

#4. Mobile Screen will become the primary screen.

As a digital marketer we’re already suggesting clients to go Mobile First and to design for Mobile First and Desktop to follow thereon. Most brands we work with have seen their Website traffic get skewed towards Mobile devices over the last 2 years. Increasingly we may find that certain categories of brands, will possibly not even consider the desktop and may be Mobile First and Mobile Only Brands.

Take a look at where most of Facebook’s revenue comes from (more than 75% is from mobile) and it will increasingly become clear that smart phones should be a big part of the marketers focus in 2016. Not just for asset creation but also as a media vehicle.